Recent developments at Namu Rambe, Kabupaten Deli Serdang suggest that a World Class Heritage site, the Benteng Puteri Ijo, or Fortification of the Green Princess may be under threat from development. This series of earthen ramparts and ditches is unique in the area around Medan, the provincial capital of North Sumatra province though similar constructions may exist elsewhere in the province such as the Padang Lawas area southeast of Medan.

Unfortunately, and ironically in Visit Indonesia Year 2008, this important site, distinguished by impressive earthen ramparts and ditches, extends along the south bank of the Deli river where the river transforms into the Lau Petani, the Karo name for the stream which rises on the slopes of the Gunung Sibayak. It appears to be under threat from development. For some unknown reason the site does not appear to be listed in the Inventory of Ancient Sites for Aceh and North Sumatra held by the BP3 Aceh and Sumatera Utara based in Banda Aceh.

Benteng Puteri Ijo is associated with the Legend of the Green Princess, a folk hero claimed by both Karo and Melayu ethnic groups. According to the Karo, Puteri Ijo was boru Sembiring (a member of the merga Sembiring, one of the five Karo clans) who came from the village of Siberaya, Urung Sukapiring, on the Karo plateau. She married the Raja Aru who ruled at Deli Tua – a settlement that formerly existed where the ramparts now stand. Aru was attacked by Aceh and the ruler killed by subterfuge and treachery. His wife fled into the surrounding forest on the back of an elephant and eventually made her way to Johor, where she married the ruling Sultan who helped her oust the Acehnese and regain her kingdom. A sixteenth century account by the Portuguese writer Pinto states that Aru was conquered by the Acehnese in 1539 and recounts how the Queen of Aru made her way to Johor and the events that transpired thereafter.

Evidence for former habitation at the Benteng Puteri Ijo site exists in the form of ceramic sherds and other artefacts which may be found on the surface of the ground within the settlement area, though many have been pulverised due to repeated ploughing for agricultural activities. Miksic (1979) describes the topography and characteristics of the area as follows:

“This site is on the fifty-meter elevation contour; here the land rapidly begins to rise above the featureless Deli plain, and thus marks an important point of topographic transition. …. The main features of the site are two large earthen fortifications 1.2 kilometres apart (see map, attached). Both utilize the near-vertical west bank of the Deli river as part of the defense.

The local topography is composed of a number of parallel and very narrow ridges, on which houses are located and crops such as maize and tapioca are grown. Between the ridges, in equally narrow valleys, are irrigated rice fields. These ridges and the intervening valleys are each less than a hundred meters wide, but stretch north and south for several kilometers. The tops of the parallel ridges are ten to fifteen meters above the padis.”

Miksic goes on to describe two defensive features, one 150 X 60 metres in extent at the northern end of the complex and another feature some 300 metres square. At the time he undertook his survey, the area was heavily overgrown and he would appear not to have seen other defensive features which now, with more clearing having taken place in the intervening years, are more readily apparent to the observer. The earthworks would thus appear to be much more extensive than reported in 1979, as the additional south-facing natural features of the area have been enhanced and strengthened for defence subsuming an extensive defensive complex some 1800 metres in length and of varying depth. The actual extent of the settlement complex requires further survey and verification.

The intervening valleys mentioned above are actually former river beds, abandoned courses of the Lau Petani, which have considerably broken up the terrain to the south of the fortifications. The construction of the fortifications show remarkable ingenuity in the adaptation of the terrain for defensive purposes, enhancing the natural slope of the land and by the planting of impenetrable clumps of bamboo along the crests of the ramparts. These latter are largely in the process of being destroyed but some remnants still give a vivid impression of the original strength of the ramparts.

Miksic’s map shows some six locations within the general area of the former settlement where cultural remains were to be seen in 1979. It appears however, that the area of cultural remains is actually much more extensive than reported earlier, as traces of sherd material may now be found in cultivated fields, even beyond the Medan / Namu Rambe road.

The site of a spring, now known as the Pancuran Puteri Ijo, where Puteri Ijo reputedly went to bathe is located on the southeast side of the complex, a short distance from the Lau Petani and below an entrance feature, well-protected by steep and powerful ramparts. The spring is now acknowledged as a keramat where Medan folk go to burn incense and to ask for favours.

Ceramic sherd material recovered from the settlement area comprises Chinese wares, the earliest of which date from the late Song (1127-1279) and Yuan (1280-1368), Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) periods, Burmese, Thai Si Sachanalai (Sawankhalok) and Sukhothai wares and Vietnamese wares. The Ming material comprises both Longquan celadons and Jingdezhen blue and white wares. A Burmese green on white sherd, extremely rare in a Southeast Asian export context, has been recovered within the fortification area.

Sherd recoveries at Deli Tua relate to finds of similar materials at Kota Rentang, an extensive early Islamic site located west of Hamperan Perak and some 6 to 8 kilometres from Kota Cina, the latter an 11th to late 13thor early 14th century riverine harbour site located between the Sungei Deli and the Belawan rivers. Kota Cina related material, including recoveries of Chinese coins, has been recovered at both Deli Tua and Kota Rentang.

There are also considerable amounts of locally produced earthenware. Of the latter, Miksic (1979) writes:

“The pastes of earthenware from Deli Tua fall into three types. The most common type contains a striking amount of iron pyrite which causes the surfaces of ost of these sherds to glitter with numerous golden flecks. These sherds come mainly from the simple thick-walled, wheel-formed bowls (see drawing 114). One variety has traces of a red slip on the exterior, and anvil marks on the interior.

The second type is nearly as common. Little or no pyrite exists in these sherds, but mica is quite common. Vessels were mostly flaring-rimmed cooking pots, some with rim designs similar to Kota Cina vessels, and many sherds bear traces of red slip. Some sherds come from smaller unslipped vessels.

The third type is rare, and the paste includes both pyrite and mica, though the pyrite is not as abundant as in the first type described. These sherds have a much smoother feel, because of the finer grained paste. No shapes can be reconstructed. One sherd has a paddle-marked impressed herringbone design.”

Locally made earthenwares would normally display quantities of volcanic glass, derived from the volcanic tuff (cadas) which forms much of the bedrock of the north Sumata area, a legacy of the tremendous Toba eruption of some 60 to 70,000 years ago.

Miksic observed that no one area within that surveyed contained any unusual concentrations of sherd material of any one type or period. He thus assumed that areas near to the northern and southern fortifications were inhabited contemporaneously – evidence which suggests a near continuity of occupation over a period of six to seven hundred years from at least the c14th, if not earlier, to the present.

Over the centuries Deli Tua was an important node in the route between the coast and the plateau, with a trail leading up past Limau Mungkur to Bukum and the Cingkam pass.

The name first appears in European literature in a report by John Anderson who visited Deli in 1823, where he notes that “At Delli Tuah, or Old Delli, there are the remains of an old fort, with large square stones, the walls thirty feet in height, and two hundred fathoms in circumference. Rajah putri Iju, the celebrated princess, is stated to have built it. It is now, however, in a very imperfect state; and possibly my information as to the size may be incorrect.” (Anderson 1971: 292). Anderson did not personally visit Deli Tua and reference to stone-built defences was an exaggeration, but the site was obviously well known in the folk memory of the period.

In 1866, Deli Tua was visited by the Dutch Colonial Controlleur, Van Cats, Baron de Raet,who passed through on his way to the Karo plateau (Van Cats: 1875: 173-175). He found it surprising that so many people could be housed in so few dwellings. His description of the area includes a note of a lela or Malay bronze cannon that was found imbedded in the earthen ramparts and which bore an inscription in Jawi (Arabic) script, “Sanah 1004 (?) alamat balon Haru” which Lau Husni (n.d.) affirms is a mixture of Malay and Karo. The date was initially thought to be 1104, which transcribes as 1691 C.E. but, as the name Aru disappears completely in the early sixteenth century when it was conquered by Sultan Iskandar Muda of Aceh in 1612, the date in all probability should read 1591 C.E.. The cannon is thought now to be in the collections of the Museum Nasional, Jakarta. On his return, Van Cats purchased a lead cannon shot from the penghulu for 5 guilders.

Over the years, numerous small Acehnese gold coins known as dirham have been found scattered over the Benteng Puteri Ijo site. A single Chinese coin of the Zhenzong emperor, of the period 1111-1118 C.E. together with a fragment of Song period qingbai porcelain were found at the southern end of the fortification complex.

A small modern village, occupied by Karo people is located within the ramparts at a location known as Deli Tua Lama. Here the ridge is some 250 metres in width and cut by a two metre high rampart and a ditch, in which is a point where a five metre causeway across the ditch allows access to the village (Miksic 1979).

At the present time, very little is known of the lost kingdom of Aru. The earliest historical sources are limited to a number of brief references in the Chinese annals, including the histories of the Yuan (Mongol: 1280-1360) and Ming (1360-1660) dynasties. In the early fifteenth century, Aru was visited on some three different occasions by the Ming fleets under the command of Zhenghe (Cheng Ho) and the country is described briefly by Ma Huan in his Ying-yai Sheng-lan, The Overall Survey of the Ocean’s Shores) published in 1433. By the early sixteenth century, however, Portuguese sources provide rather more information about Aru, its location, its rulers, its political relationships and religious affiliations and so forth. Malay sources, including the Sejarah Melayu affirm the arrival of Islam which we can take as being in the thirteenth century, if not earlier. Prior to the rise of Aru, this same north eastern coast of Sumatra may have been known to the Song period Chinese as ‘bata’ (Hirth & Rockhill 1911).

The earliest written references are related in the Yuan-shi, the History of the Yuan Dynasty, where records indicate that Aru along with other contemporary polities on the north coast of Sumatra, including Peureulak and Samudera were required to offer tribute to the newly established Mongol emperors of China. There are records dating from 1292, the last decade of the thirteenth century that note the presence of embassies from Aru at the Chinese court. By this time, Aru had adopted Islam and forged links with south China, Vietnam (including Champa in the south of the country, where there were strong Islamic ties) and southern India (as well as Sri Lanka).

Due to the disturbances around the fall of the Yuan dynasty in the 1360’s, many Muslims in south China were fleeing by sea to Southeast Asia. There appear to have been rivalries and friction between Sunnis elements and Shias of Persian origin in Quanzhou which precipitated these moves which in turn greatly stimulated the development of Islam in Southeast Asia (Wade 2007).

In 1411, the Ming Shi-lu records the name of Sultan Husayn as the ruler of Aru. On 23rd September 1419, the Ming Shi-lu further notes that “Also the envoys sent by Duan-al-Shar, the son of the king of the country of Aru, and by Sha Zhen-han, the son of the country of Nan-bo-li, offered tribute of local products. Suits of clothing interwoven with gold thread, silver, copper cash, ramie-silk, silk gauzes and variegated thin silks, as appropriate, were conferred on all the envoys.” Six days later, on the 29th September “A banquet was conferred upon the king of the country of Melaka, together with the envoys sent by the king of the country of Aru and Nan-bo-li, at Feng-tian Gate. Thus by the early fifteenth century, these names suggest that Islam may be seen to have been well established on the northern and eastern coasts of Sumatra (Wade: 2005). The Ming voyages between 1405 and 1435 temporarily extended Ming Chinese power over the known maritime world at that time (Wade 2005).

The historical record is confirmed by archaeological recoveries, in particular at Kota Rentang. Recent recoveries of Chinese thirteenth to sixteenth century export ceramic materials at Kota Rentang, to be discussed in depth by Professor Dr Naniek H. Wibisono at this seminar, affirm these linkages. Vietnamese stonewares, as well as Thai materials have been excavated here. What is thought to be Gujerati glazed earthenware has also been recovered. The ceramic materials provide tangible evidence for maritime trade contacts with Quanzhou, in Fujian, in south China, the greatest port in the world during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and with the coasts of Vietnam and Champa. Later ceramics recoveries suggest links with Ayyuthaya in Thailand and with the north central Thai ceramic-producing areas of Si Satchanalai (Sawankahlok) and Sukhothai as well as Burma. In addition to ceramic recoveries, there are traces of metal working, in particular sign of iron smithing.

We may, however, go back a further two centuries to the mid/late eleventh century when Kota Cina, a neighbouring riverine harbour settlement near the Belawan estuary was occupied by Tamil merchants affiliated to one or other of the Tamil guilds, the Nanadesi or Ainnurruvar also known as the ‘Five Hundred of the Thousand directions’. Kota Cina was almost certainly linked with Kota Rentang by means of inland waterways and at least one settlement in the Kota Rentang area was contemporary with it. The Tamils at Kota Cina appear to have strong links with Anuradhapura and Polonarruva in northern Sri Lanka, from where they brought bronze mirrors, glass and stone beads, glass vessels, cloth, iron and in all probability day-to-day necessities such as salt. The also imported prodigious amounts of Chinese ceramics from the southern kilns of Fujian, Jiangxi and Zhejiang and finer earthenwares than those produced locally, probably from Champa in what is now southern Vietnam.[1] In return they obtained valuable forest resins such as kapur barus (camphor) brought across from the Dairi Pakpak area west of lake Toba, kemenyan (benzoin) also from the area west of lake Toba, gold dust from Alas, and possibly items such as belerang (sulphur), rotan and ivory. These were then shipped either north-eastwards to south China or westwards to Sri Lanka and beyond.

Pires notes that the few products of Aru, including forest products and slaves, were traded to Pasai and Melaka. Several different sources mention rice growing and the availability of forest resins.

If the list of local products available from the Karo dusun areas of Langkat, Deli and Serdang and further afield in the northern part of the island noted by Anderson in the early nineteenth century (Anderson 1971) in any way resembles those of earlier centuries, Aru’s hinterland resources were considerable. Trade did, however, wax and wane over the centuries and supply would have no doubt responded to overseas demand. The Portuguese, however, suggest that in the early sixteenth century Aru produced very little. By that time, it was widely regarded as a piratical state with hardly any trade and simply stole what it wanted from ships passing through the Selat Melaka. It was continuously at war with Melaka. At its greatest extent, Aru would appear to have controlled the northeast coast of Sumatra from Tamiang in the northwest, south-eastwards as far as Rokan. The pirates were selates, ‘peoples of the Selat’ who lived in inaccessible swamps close to the coast from which they raided passing vessels (Cortesao 1944).

As mentioned above, Islam appears to have been introduced at some time in the thirteenth century. Aru was supposedly Muslim before either Peureulak or Samudera Pasai. Numerous nisan, known as batu Aceh or Aceh (grave) stones are to be found in the area in and around Kota Rentang. These funerary monuments, most of which are smallish, simple, undecorated blank slabs are cut from volcanic tuff (cadas) and therefore differ from many of the more sophisticated and elaborate nisan found in Aceh Besar and Aceh Utara which are cut from a yellowish grey sandstone. It is quite possible that although there appears to have been considerable trade in funerary monuments in the fifteenth century, many of these particular nisan with simple forms may have been quarried somewhere in the hinterland of Kota Rentang. Tuff is exposed on the surface in a number of localities in the hinterland of Kota Rentang. The Islamic associations do, however, underline linkages with the Persian gulf and the middle east as well as with Samudera Pase and Melaka as well as China, where there were large established Muslim communities in Quanzhou (Wade 2008). So far, however, dated inscriptions at Kota Rentang have proved elusive so that it has not been possible to accurately date or put names to any of the deceased at this site. A number of important batu Aceh, visible on Pulau Mojopahit in Kota Rentang in the early 1970’s have since disappeared but may still be buried under the ground. Although some slightly more elaborate forms may be dated to the early/mid fifteenth century, it is possible that others, the very basic slab-like forms with rounded tops may be dated to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Islam appears to have continued to survive in the area around Hamparan Perak until the end of the sixteenth century, as evidenced by the discovery of a nisan, now much damaged and preserved in this museum (Museum Negeri Sumatera Utara), of Syech Abdullah died in Klumpang in 1596 and also by the fact that the datuk or kepala suku of the Karo inhabitants of this area in the early nineteenth century were Muslims although the majority of the inhabitants were unconverted Karo.

As far as is known, Aru left no written records. It is now up to the archaeological record and so-far undiscovered funerary inscriptions to reveal further information about the social and commercial aspects of the ancient Arus. Excavations at Kota Rentang, and surface collections within the area of the fortifications at Benteng Puteri Hijau, at Namu Rambe suggest that Aru had well-established trade contacts with China, Vietnam, Thailand and with points further along the northeast coast of Sumatra as well as the Indian Ocean and possibly the Persian Gulf by the fifteenth century. Further work is, of course, needed to expand the basic data already collected and to try to identify local forest and other products as well as imports.

References.

Anderson, John

1971Mission to the East Coast of Sumatra in 1823. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford in Asia Reprints

1911Chau Ju-Kua: His Work on the Chinese and Arab Trade in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, Entitled Chu-Fan-Chi. St. Petersberg: Imperial Academy of Sciences

Mills, J.V.G. (ed)

1970Ma Huan. Ying-yai Sheng-lan (1433). The Overall View of the Ocean’s Shores. Cambridge: Cambridge University for the Haklyut Society.

1984“Chinese Navigators in Insulinde about A.D. 1500” in: Selected Readings from Archipel 18 for SPAFA Consultative Workshop on Research on Maritime Shipping and Trade Networks in Southeast Asia (I-W7). Cisarua, West Java. 119-143.

Milner, Anthony C., E. Edwards McKinnon and Tengku Luckman Sinar

1977“Aru and Kota Cina” Indonesia, 26, 1-42.

Wade, Geoff. [Translator]

2005Southeast Asia in the Ming Shi-lu: an Open Access Resource. Singapore: Asia Research Institute and the Singapore E-Press, National Universityof Singapore, http://epress.nus.edu.sg/msl/entry/… accessed May 05, 2005.

2007“Quan-zhou and Southeast Asian Islam in the Second Half of the 14th Century: A Moment of Change.” Paper presented at Moments in the Making of Southeast Asian Islam. Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore 5-6 February 2007.

The kingdom of Aru is a large kingdom, bigger than any of those mentioned up to now in Sumatra, and it is not rich through merchandise and trade, for it has none. This [king] has many people, many lancaras. He is the greatest king in all Sumatra, and the most powerful in plundering raids. He is a Moor and lives in the hinterland, and has many rivers in his country. The land itself is marshy and cannot be penetrated.

This [king] is always in residence in his kingdom.His mandarins and his people go robbing at sea, and they share with him because some part of the armada is paid by them. Since Malacca began, he has always been at war with Malacca and has taken manyof its people. He pounces on a village and takes everything, even the fishermen; and the Malays always keep a great watch for the Arus, because this quarrel is already of long standing and it has always remained, whence comes the saying ‘Aru against Malacca, Achin against Pedir, Pedir against Kedah and Siam, Pahang against Siam on the other side, Palembang against Linga, Celates against Bugis (Bajus), etc. and all these nations fight one against the other and they are rarely friends.

The people of Aru are presumptuous and warlike, and no one trusts them. If they do not steal, they do not live, and therefore no one is friendly with them. They must have a hundred paráos and more whenever they want them, not very big things, more adapted for speed than for taking cargo.

The land of Aru has plenty of rice, and very white and good and in large quantities; it has plenty of meat, fish, wine such as they use, and fruit in great abundance.

It has edible camphor in good quantities; it has gold; it has a great deal of benzoin, and good; it has apothecary’s lignaloes; it has rattans, pitch, wax, honey, slaves (men and women); it has a few merchants. Some of this merchandise is sold by way of Pase and Pedir and some by way of Panchur, because some of the land of Aru is in the land of Menangankabau, and they have great rivers inland along which the whole island of Sumatra can be navigated, and from these places they get the cloth for their clothes and other things.

Aru has a town in the land of Arqat[3], where a slave market (of men and women) is held in certain months, and [it is] open to all. Anyone who likes can go there in safety; and many people go there to buy slaves, and some people send there to buy their sons, and daughters their mothers, and husbands their wives; and they also deal in other merchandise there; and that is the way it happens with the Celates, as will be told when we speak of the Celates robbers in their proper place.

The kingdom of Arqat is bounded on one side by Aru and on the other by Rokan (Yrcan). The king is a Moor. He has a small country. He has small paráos. He does not do much trade. He is a vassal of the king of Aru. The people of this kingdom on the sea coast are Celates robbers and those inland live on their crops.

This country has gold; it has rice, wines and fish; and they load dried salt fish here. Only very small paráos can come into this country along inlets. The king is related to the king of Aru.[4]

[Transcribed: 09 06 08. E.EMcK]

[1]Fine Paste Ware (FPW), a variety of which is now known to have originated in eastern Java.

[2]Daru is a contraction of the genitive de and Aru. Pires also used the form Daru in his letter written from Cochin 27 Jan. 1516, where he refers to the Regno de daru; but it is erroneous to write ‘de daru’.The kingdom or state of Aru, like most of those mentioned by Pires, has long ago disappeared from the maps. But the name survives in Aru Bay, on the north-east coast of Sumatra and in the Aroa islands, a group of islets lying nearly in mid-channel between the Sumatran coast and Cape Rachado, Reinel’s maps of c. 1517 and c. 1518 are the first to show aRu and trra daRu, immediately north and south of the equator. L. Homem’s map of 1553 and D. Homem’s atlas of 1558 have R. daru and trra daru situated in the region of the modern Rokan river. The Aru river corresponds to the modern Deli river, on which stands the city ofAru.

[3]Cortesao suggests that Arqat may be in the region of the estuary of Kualu, Bila and Panai rivers. I prefer Asahan, as Arqat is elsewhere written Arcat, pronounced Arsat, and the Asahan region is where Anderson observed the sale of slaves in the early c19th. E.

[4]The inference of these and earlier passages is that the might of Aru at its greatest, extended from Tamiang eastwards along the northeast coast of the island to Asahan and possibly as far south as the Panei/Bila or Rokan regions. Recoveries of earthenware from Kota Rentang may relate both to Langkat and to the Padang Lawas. Further research and analysis is required to confirm this hypothesis.